***** The Idea of Culture Shock 20 years ago, in the outback of Australia, I first heard about the phenomenon of ‘reverse culture shock’. If you’re not familiar with the concept, it describes what happens when people return home after living overseas, and discover it’s not quite the same. Their home culture, which was once to them like water is to a fish, suddenly becomes alien, strange, and different. Fast forward two decades and I thought I knew what I was in for on returning to the UK from the sub-tropical Gulf Coast of Texas. After living in and learning from a different culture for just shy of a decade, I anticipated that it would take time, it would feel different, and I might need to relearn some of the Britishness I’d left behind. First-hand Experience of Coming 'Home' In many senses, I do think I was readier than some for the return. But there were two things that I was not as prepared for as I’d thought. The first was this: the culture hadn’t actually changed all that much. Yes, there’d been a pandemic, a cost-of-living-crisis (that continues), and various other shifts, but the UK was largely the same as it was before. It wasn’t the culture that was different, but me. I no longer fitted in as I did before. The cultural hills I used to be willing to die on don’t matter to me anymore. I still appreciate the art of a good queue, a decent cup of tea, and other such delights. But they’re not as intrinsic to me as they were before. I care more than I used to about parking—and the astonishing obliviousness with which some Brits park. I will speak up about bad service in a restaurant. My time is precious and I will do something about it if I feel like someone is wasting it. Even my sense of humour has changed! I am different: my identity has been shaped from living in Texas for as long as I did. And I found on my return I can still fit—but not in the same way. I find myself gravitating towards people who also know what it’s like to call different countries home and can laugh at both cultures. I find myself connecting with different Brits to the ones I might have connected with before. I am doing things and speaking in ways that I wouldn’t have done before. In the words of Taylor Swift, I discovered that “ I’m the problem, it’s me .” (Though to be fair I don’t really see this as a problem!) Coming back to the 'Mother Church' The second thing that I wasn’t prepared for was the locus of where I felt this most acutely. I felt, and continue to feel this most acutely within the (literal and metaphorical) walls of the Church of England. I was raised in the Church of England, worked for Anglican churches and schools, trained in an Anglican theological college, yet I find that I don’t fit like I used to. Part of that is more general difference: the level of bureaucracy in the CofE is at times alarming and bizarre. After all of my history and rootedness in British Anglicanism, because of technicalities and clerical fudges, I am considered an ‘overseas’ priest. So I can only minister with Overseas Permission To Officiate (OPTO), rather than the more typical domestic version, which required the Archbishop’s approval. But apart from the institutional differences at the level of administration, my perspective on theological issues has shifted. I’m not saying my theology itself has changed, but how I hold it has. I come back into a church fighting over all kinds of issues (from liturgical forms to sexuality) and it seems so much more tribal than I remember. I used to be in those tribes—I knew the impulse to self-protection and defence, to engage in the name of what is true and loving and godly. But I no longer fit (and to be clear, I mostly think this is a good thing). But some days it’s really weird being on the outside. It’s like listening to conversation where you hear the words, you know what they mean, but at the same time it sounds completely foreign and alien. In some ways I experienced the same thing moving to the States. I didn’t understand the culture (and in some ways I still don’t), the fights over politics, the culture wars, and various other things. But I knew that I was in a place that wasn’t the culture in which I was raised, so I expected it. Where I didn’t think I’d feel it was back in the UK Church. Making Sense of an Unfamiliar Home So how do I make sense of all of this? How do I navigate this new reality where I don't fit in the same way I used to? I was teaching recently with a colleague on biblical interpretation and we were discussing different models for approaching a text and how people making meaning out of it. For example, we talked about how Anglican evangelicalism reads the Bible, but also how it has been shaped in the last a hundred years or so by constantly engaging with German academic liberalism. We also asked what this dialogue might gain from engaging with different conversation partners and other models of interpretation—from the Global South, from different backgrounds and experiences, many of whom ask questions of the text we would never think of asking! Having a breadth of conversation partners is important. Anglican evangelicalism was significantly shaped by responding to a more sceptical German audience. This shaped the dialogue in a certain way: questions about historicity, origins, and authorship. Bringing in different voices and conversations brings with it an inherent richness to think beyond our own limits, gain new insight, and see more of what God is doing in the Bible and what He is wanting to say (which in my view is a very good thing!). I say all this, because it points to just how important it is to have discussions that engage different voices: it breeds creativity. It helps us break new ground and see new things—and get beyond the trenches of where we are in opposition. What I've noticed in coming back as a now quasi-outsider is this: the church too often loses sight of the signified. We focus on the signs that point to the signified. We get caught up in the language we use, the external descriptors that point to the reality of what God has done in Christ, rather than the reality itself. The question for me is how does God want me to use my different perspective? How might I participate and bring with me a voice that is both an insider and an outsider? It’s very easy (and somewhat tempting) to choose not to participate and check out—to disengage. But actually, God has called us to community. To connect. To be the diverse body of Christ we are (Gal 3:28). Wherever God puts us He calls us to do the work He has for us. And the question is really 'to whom have you called me, God?' Among whom am I called to serve? So I’m praying about with whom and where that might be. And that I might have the courage to do so, even if it narrows that sense of strangeness.  ****** Photo by Raul Varzar on Unsplash

Are you 100% sure about that? Last December, Stephen and I headed for Prague for a few days. We were looking forward to Christmas markets, mulled wine, and shopping. Because we had booked a really early flight, we decided to stay in an airport hotel the night before. We hadn’t banked on one thing though: how to get from the bus station at Heathrow to the hotel. We could see our destination towering ahead of us as we exited the coach, but there was no reliable way to get there on foot. Much like Houston, navigating the surface roads of Heathrow is much easier for those in a car. So, we asked for directions from one of the airport staff. She pointed us over to two elevators, sat right next to each other. One had a line of at least twenty people. The other one had none. Those at the front of the queue hadn’t even pressed the button. That seemed strange and indicated that perhaps the people in line didn’t know what they were doing—or weren’t used to London airports. But why was one line so long and the other non-existent? The signs above weren’t exactly clear, but here were two lifts side-by-side, surely they went to the same place? Towards the back of the line was a middle-aged man, surrounded by luggage and family, who realised what we were trying to puzzle out. “Nah, you can’t use it. The other lift doesn’t go down. Doesn’t go to the same place,” he told us. We looked at him quizzically. “Are you sure?” we asked. “ One hundred percent , mate. One hundred percent.” The certainty with which he declared his answer was persuasive. He crowed like he was the CEO of the airport. That lift would not go where the other one was going. He repeated himself again. 100%. Only, he was wrong. We risked looking like fools. We walked to the vacant elevator, hit the button, and—lo and behold!—an elevator appeared that went to the exact same location as the other. The middle-aged man surrounded by luggage was 100%... in the wrong. Utterly and completely. *** Words, words, words, but no wisdom I don’t personally know the man who so-confidently revealed his wrongness. I’ve no idea whether his bluster was out of character from his usual self. But in the moment of our encounter, he acted every bit the ‘fool’ we find in Book of Proverbs: "A fool takes no pleasure in understanding, but only in expressing personal opinion." (Proverbs 18:2) There is much wisdom in Proverbs 17:28: Even fools who keep silent are considered wise; when they close their lips, they are deemed intelligent. It seems to me that we live in a world saturated with words, whether written or spoken. There’s an ever-growing number of websites, social media platforms, podcasts, and so on. Even more so now with AI. Yet for all this verbal abundance, there does not seem to be any more wisdom than there used to be. I would argue with AI, there seems to be less (or perhaps it’s simply exposing our foolishness). Part of me wonders about the virtue of writing a blog, when these are so often half-thoughts, explorations, and ideas: am I just adding to the plethora of opinions that exist on the blogosphere? Last year, I was teaching on how to plan and lead funerals with our final year ordinands. I spoke with confidence about what works and what doesn’t. What the role of the cleric is, how to work with the grieving family, how to craft the sermon, what to do afterwards etc. It felt good to be able to give real, lived experience having worked in a church for a decade. But it was only during the Q&A when I realized something. I realized my confidence was borne of a very specific context: I ministered in a large, Episcopal church in Houston, Texas. Not a small parish church, somewhere remote in England. Did the wisdom and experience I bring still have value in the Church of England, where the Church is an established one? Where those who minister do among many people who don’t dare to cross the threshold of a religious building except in such moments of life and death? Now I happen to think it does; but only with some qualification. For what I realized in that moment is that it’s not quite as readily transferable as I’d assumed. Church cultures are different. Expectations are different. How people respond and react to their local vicar is different! What works in one scenario doesn’t necessarily work in another. Consider Proverbs 26:4-5: 4 Do not answer fools according to their folly, or you will be a fool yourself. 5 Answer fools according to their folly, or they will be wise in their own eyes. Proverbs 26 has a seeming contradiction that speaks to the importance of context. In the situation where you’re faced with someone spouting foolishness, what should you do? Speak or not speak? Engage or not engage? The modern equivalent to v.4 might be to say to yourself “not my monkeys, not my circus” and walk away. But what about the times when it is your circus? When they are your monkeys? What about when to walk away is to leave someone blind to their mistakes and doomed to make more? What if responding might feasibly help someone see beyond their own blinkers and make a different choice? Sometimes v.4 might be the path of wisdom. Other times it’s v.5. But it’s not always apparent which is which. Overconfidence is not just dangerous for making us look like fools or giving bad advice. If we stay in our certitude, we miss the heart of the issue revealed in these two verses: we need wisdom. So where do we find it? *** Does ‘wisdom come with age’? I’ve heard it said that ‘wisdom comes with age’. Ironically enough, this line was used when I was in something of a disagreement with someone much older than me. But claiming moral high ground or superior understanding on the basis of some unalterable characteristic that you have but I don’t, is more indicative of pride than wisdom. If age does come with wisdom, there would be no conflict or disagreement within the human species as we age. If age is the sole arbiter, we should collectively do better as the wrinkles and grey hairs multiply. Yet that’s not what happens. Wisdom, sadly, is not inevitable. It can come with age because of one very simple reality: the more time you’ve had on the planet means you’ve had more opportunity to become wise. Now whether or not you’ve taken those opportunities is quite a different thing! *** Wisdom: a gift that needs seeking Proverbs has an interestingly balanced view of wisdom. It is (1) something that requires active seeking, yet also (2) something which only God can give. Proverbs 2:1-4 talks about the need to exert effort in acquisition of wisdom. It’s not something that just lands on our laps: it asks you to be open to learning and sitting with what you receive (v.1), deliberate and intentional in putting your body in a space to grow in it (v.2), and vocal in your search for it (v.3). In other words: humble, open, and hungry. This passage concludes by likening it to searching for silver or hidden treasure (v.4). Think about that for a moment: do you search for wisdom in the same way you seek out growth in income or asset? From a human wisdom point of view, seeking financial gain for our security and future as we age (and our children grow and go off to college etc) makes good sense. But what if we were to seek wisdom with the very same fervour? What if wisdom had the same significance for our spiritual security and future? What if it is important to our growth in the Christian life and readiness for what may come our way? It’s a gift that needs seeking. But Proverbs tells us it is also a gift that is given. Verse 6 reveals “ the LORD gives wisdom; from his mouth come knowledge and understanding .” Our seeking is not the whole picture. Longing for wisdom does not mean we get it. Wisdom is God’s domain not ours. Proverbs 8 illustrates that God’s Wisdom is not something to acquire or harvest. It is not a commodity to be doled out. It is not a consumer good. Wisdom was present when God made the world. Wisdom is a part of God’s self that chooses when to be imparted and when not to be (compare 1:28; 8:17; 9:5, 16) The very fabric of our material world is infused with the mystery of Wisdom. Insight and understanding comes from God and helps us to navigate the complexity of our lives, but this gift is just a glimpse of a much greater reality of the divine Wisdom which exists eternally. This, perhaps, brings us back to where I started. True wisdom is never found in loud proclamations of “one hundred percent!”. Why? Because the one who is wise recognises they have a lot to learn. They know that new information can shift and reframe yesterday’s certainty. Maybe the first step is to stop claiming absolute certainty—to stop the all-or-nothing thinking. Maybe we start with recognising what Paul talks about in 1 Corinthians 13: we only see in part, know in part, understand in part. And from there, we begin actively seeking that gift which only God—from His Wisdom—can give. Wisdom has built her house, she has hewn her seven pillars. 2 She has slaughtered her animals, she has mixed her wine, she has also set her table. 3 She has sent out her servant-girls, she calls from the highest places in the town, 4 "You that are simple, turn in here!" To those without sense she says, 5 "Come, eat of my bread and drink of the wine I have mixed. 6 Lay aside immaturity, and live, and walk in the way of insight." Proverbs 9:1-6 ****** Photo © Copyright Derek Harper and licensed for reuse under a cc-by-sa/2.0 Creative Commons Licence.